Salmon fishing in Oregon’s southern Grant County had been a thing of the past for nearly 100 years – until a joint effort by the Burns Paiute Tribe and the state of Oregon brought salmon to Malheur Ford outside of Seneca.
The WDFW scientists teamed up with Dr. Jonathan Armstrong from the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University over the course of a year to analyze the monthly stomach contents of walleye in the Lower Snake River.
Juvenile Chinook salmon in Canada’s Lower Fraser River estuary are feeding and growing in a slurry of contaminants from pharmaceuticals, personal care products to industrial chemicals, according to a new Simon Fraser University study. Researchers found more than 200 contaminants in water and fish tissue samples collected from five sites in the Lower Fraser River...
The Sin Nombre virus — a hantavirus that can cause a deadly respiratory disease in humans — may be more widespread among rodent populations in parts of the Pacific Northwest than previously recognized.
With summer around the corner and the World Cup arriving in Seattle in June, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is reminding boaters to follow the law and protect endangered Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) by staying 1,000 yards away.
In response to a petition filed in 2024 by the Wild Fish Conservancy, NOAA Fisheries announced this week that it had completed its status review and 12-month finding for Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon, determining that listing of three evolutionary significant units of the salmon under the federal Endangered Species Act is not warranted. The...
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking public input on a draft periodic status review for the streaked horned lark that includes a recommendation to keep larks classified as a state endangered species. The public comment period is open through Aug. 11.
Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians have sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help secure Endangered Species Act protections for the pygmy rabbit – the world’s smallest rabbit species. The rabbits are found in parts of Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Colorado, California, and Oregon.
Joanne Thompson, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, has announced a next step in strengthening the long-term conservation and rebuilding of wild Pacific salmon with the expansion of mass marking of all DFO (Fisheries and Ocean Canada) hatchery-origin Chinook salmon in southern British Columbia.
Following a decline at the end of 2024, the Washington Gray Wolf Conservation and Management Annual Report shows that the minimum year-end wolf count increased by more than 17% at the end of 2025. In Oregon, the minimum known count of wolves in Oregon at the end of 2025 was 230 wolves, compared to 204...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game released the annual statewide salmon run forecast and commercial harvest projection report: Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2026 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2025 Season.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has undertaken emergency rule making to classify golden mussels as a Prohibited Level 1 invasive species statewide in response to the imminent threat of introduction and spread to Washington’s waters. As a Prohibited Level 1 species, live golden mussels may not be possessed or retained, introduced on or...
Within just two years, the female grizzly that was released in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) emerged from her den this spring with two cubs in tow – a welcoming sight that represents successful population genetic enhancement and state collaboration. This event marks a milestone for grizzly bear management in America, establishing certain genetic interchange between the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) in Montana and the GYE.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies recently completed a five-year update to the Western Monarch Butterfly Conservation Plan, a 50-year plan to guide coordinated, ecosystem-based conservation strategies that support a viable western monarch butterfly population.
During the 2024–2025 spawning season, endangered Central California Coast coho salmon migrated to Mendocino Coast rivers in numbers few scientists thought they would see in their careers. Monitoring teams estimated that more than 30,000 adult coho returned, double the previous season’s record-breaking return of 15,000 coho. These numbers represent a significant leap from the past decade, where as few as 3,000 fish returned annually.
Scientists with the Wildlife Genetics Research Unit at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife have completed a genomic study of nutria, an invasive South American rodent, linking their 2017 discovery in Merced County to a population in central Oregon. This was the first genomic study of the semi-aquatic pest species that is harmful to wetland habitats and agriculture and has challenged control efforts of land and wildlife managers worldwide for decades.
New evidence suggests that a disease-causing tapeworm that has been spreading across the United States and Canada has arrived in the Pacific Northwest. The tapeworm, called Echinococcus multilocularis, lives as a parasite in coyotes, foxes and other canid species and can cause severe disease if passed to domestic dogs or humans.
The Center for Biological Diversity has sent a notice to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of its intent to sue the agencies for approving a logging project in western Oregon that it says will destroy and fragment the mature and old-growth forests needed by marbled murrelets.
The number of sea lions in the Bonneville Dam tailrace has dropped in recent years, perhaps due to a persistent lethal removal program by states and tribes, but the percentage of the run of Columbia River salmon and steelhead that is devoured by sea lions has largely remained about the same.
Of the fish that had passed Bonneville Dam last spring, California and Steller sea lions consumed 3.6 percent of the spring Chinook salmon and 5.5 percent of the steelhead. Some 98 individual sea lions were responsible for this predation, according to a recently-released annual report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Endangered Southern Resident killer whales are known for the tight-knit family structure that isolates them from other killer whale populations. In 2005, NOAA Fisheries listed the whales as a Distinct Population Segment under the Endangered Species Act due to their unique genetic legacy and endangered status. The 74 whales remain at risk from insufficient prey, environmental contaminants, disturbance and inbreeding.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff at the Ashland Boat Inspection Station found quagga mussels on a motorboat that was being transported from Lake Havasu, Arizona into Oregon on March 21.
White-nose syndrome in bats has been detected for the first time in Oregon in Columbia and Benton counties. Also this month, the first cases of the disease in Idaho bats were detected.
Common ravens are often spotted soaring above wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Researchers assumed that the scavengers were following the wolves to get their scraps, but new research reveals a twist: Ravens don’t follow wolves, they remember common hunting grounds and regularly check back for fresh meat.
A massive marine heatwave warmed the eastern Pacific Ocean through much of 2025, but the wind-driven upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that drives the rich marine productivity of the West Coast kept the ecosystem healthy.
An Earthwise Knowledge Initiative Publication
